Submitted by admin on Mon, 2007-03-26 08:00. ::
Song is one of many individuals who believe the Japanese government should issue a formal, Parliament-backed apology for enslaving an many as an estimated 200,000 Asian women -- widely known as "comfort women" and including many from Korea and China -- during the war and forcing them into prostitution in brothels used by the Japanese armed forces.
By some estimates, Korea provided some 20 percent of the WWII "comfort women," or as many as 40,000 in all. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and remained part of Japan through the end of World War II.
In 1993, a Japanese Cabinet member acknowledged the war-time government's involvement and apologized for it, but the Japanese Parliament never voted to back that apology as an official government policy.
Song, who translated the Korean Council's letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi which asked her to sponsor the resolution, hopes to see the Japanese government apologize before the last surviving "comfort women" die.
At 8 tonight in Duke's Griffith Film Theater in the Bryan Center, a survivor will tell of her own personal struggle to overcome the atrocities suffered at the hands of soldiers more than half a century ago. A member of the Korean Council will also speak at the event, which will feature a brief question-and-answer period.
Sheila Broderick, Duke sexual assault prevention coordinator, said the purpose of the rally and the "Speak Out" event that will follow it, is to empower sexual violence survivors and to give those survivors a voice.
Duke Chapel bells will ring 24 times to symbolize 24 people sexually assaulted somewhere in the U.S. every hour, according to the university's Women's Center.
Pinwheels will be on display symbolizing how many men and women in the university's current undergraduate student body will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.
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